The present application relates to bearing assemblies, and more particularly, rotor bearing assemblies capable of stressing a rotor element in an axial direction.
Shear shredder machines, briquetting machines, grinding machines and other types of material processing machines typically use a plurality of meshing, substantially parallel, counter-rotating roller assemblies. Typically, each of the roller assemblies includes a substantially cylindrical, material processing roller member mounted to a rotating shaft. For example, in a shear shredding apparatus, the roller member is a stack of cutter disks separated by spacer disks. Each of the roller assemblies is supported on a frame by a pair of supports mounted on ends of the frame. Each of the supports includes a bearing housing journaling a cylindrical bearing member mounted for simultaneous rotation with the shaft of the associated roller assembly.
Conventional bearing assemblies for use with such material processing devices commonly utilize roller-bearing components, such as tapered roller bearings, which bear axial as well as radial loads. A disadvantage with such roller bearing components is their expense and relatively short life span at high loading. Another disadvantage of such roller bearing components is that they provide a limited surface area for bearing the load of the rotational member. Another known disadvantage with conventional roller bearing components is that, as the roller bearing components wear, eventually necessary to replace the entire roller bearing assembly, which is expensive and time consuming. Accordingly, there is a need for a bearing assembly that has a greater life span than comparably sized roller bearing assemblies, that is less expensive than conventional roller bearing assemblies, that provides a greater surface area to bear the load of the counter-rotating members, and that is relatively easy and inexpensive to rebuild or re-furbish.
Additionally, conventional shear shredding and other material processing devices utilize stack tighteners on the ends of the rotating shafts. Such stack tighteners act to maintain the stack of cutting disks or other material processing roller members together in a compact relationship on the shear cartridge or roller assembly. With such an arrangement, a separate bearing member is positioned either axially within one of the stack tighteners or axially outside the stack tightener. Accordingly, the size of the shear shredding or material processing apparatus is partly dictated by such arrangement.